


Lead Me Into the Light

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: True Love or Something [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Family, Family Feels, Family Issues, Gen, M/M, Shiro is Keith's brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 23:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8867698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: “Shiro,” he growls into the receiver when his brother picks up, “Why is Mom’s stupid alien junk on my lawn?”  Silence on the other end of the line and finally, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” “Shiro.”  “Just sign for it.” 	“Don’t hang up on me – Shiro – TAKASHI.  Ugh.”
Keith's mom left him some stuff in her will...stuff which is currently occupying most of his lawn. 
Takes place the summer of the first year Lance and Keith are together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> YOUR COMMENTS ARE SO LOVELY, GUYS, THANK YOU 
> 
> So this fic went way longer and had way more angst involved than I expected...Anyway, welcome to the first fic featuring Shiro and the fic that finally explains Keith's mom! Yay...
> 
> I promise I'll be back to fluffy nonsense soon, but this had to be written. 
> 
> Fair warning, I might not be able to post a new fic for this series tomorrow night, I will be temporarily wifi-less and that makes posting significantly harder. But I will try to get back on a regular schedule this weekend.

**Lead Me Into the Light**

Keith stares at the UPS girl as she holds out a clipboard and pen with an uneasy smile plastered on her face. The kind of smile that says that this was not what she signed up for when she accepted this summer job. The kind of smile that says ‘please don’t shoot the messenger’. The kind of smile that spells weakness in the face of Keith’s brain’s imminent explosion. He’s not actually sure what his face is doing right now but it’s probably not good, judging by the way the pen shakes ever-so-slightly in her hand.  

            It’s been a full minute since he opened the door and she began her spiel only to peter off into silence as she takes in the look on his face as he gazes behind and beyond her at the hodgepodge mess of boxes, crates, and unidentified lumpy packages currently gracing his front yard. It’s like a garage sale of the damned if the damned were haphazardly packed junk. Very familiar haphazardly packed junk from a very familiar sender and goddammit, he hasn’t had enough coffee for this. Or alcohol. He needs to either be drunk, or caffeinated out of his mind, or possibly on crack to handle this.

            He read a study once that said the combination of hard liquor and red bull affected the adolescent brain the same way cocaine affects lab rats. He wonders if he’s aged out of the ‘adolescent’ window yet. He’s pretty sure Pidge buys energy drinks by the wholesale crate and there’s definitely a bottle of vodka pilfered from the last cast party sitting in his kitchen. He wonders if the UPS girls is willing to wait while he experiments with his body chemistry and low-key steals his neighbors’ beverages.

            Probably not. She looks a few seconds away from throwing the clipboard at his face and bolting as-is.

            Keith takes another long sip of his sadly under-caffeinated coffee. He’s aware of what he looks like. His hair is a mess and he’s low-key hungover from that stupid cast party (Lance had to chaperone a camping trip for the Community Center kids this weekend and was not around to keep Keith from making bad decisions like drinking a whole bottle of champagne and several shots of vodka in one evening). He’s also wearing a pair of pajama pants that are too long in the leg and therefore probably belong to his wayward boyfriend and a t-shirt that says ‘Teiresias Was Right’ on the front and ‘Motherfucking Oedipus’ on the back.

            Yes, he probably looks like an insane, homicidal hobo. But this is one insane, homicidal hobo who does not want what the UPS girl with her perky ponytail and starched brown shorts is trying to pawn off on him.

            “No,” he says finally when the girl looks about ready to panic or cry or both.

            “What?” she says, perking up, having wilted a bit under his unrelenting stare.

            “No. I don’t want what you’re trying to sell me.”

            “Oh, there’s no delivery fee,” she hastens to reassure him. Keith fancies he can hear the point whizzing past as she misses it entirely.

            “I don’t want what’s in those boxes.”

            “Well, you don’t know that.”

            “I do know that.”     

            “Why don’t you just sign for them and do whatever you want?”

            “No. If I sign for them, they become mine. I don’t want them. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

            The UPS girl is looking lost and a little intimidated now. “Um, what deal?”

            Keith gives her a dead-eyed stare. “My mother and I had a deal. I was not going to inherit _any of this_. Any of it. And now it’s on my lawn.”

            “Um, I’d take that up with your mom’s attorneys.”

            Keith stares at her. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation.”       

            “I think you _really_ need to sign this paper, sir. I have other deliveries I need to get to.”

            He stares at her extra hard. She quails but rallies slightly and manages to stare back, albeit not at his level, but she’s at least trying.

            He sighs. “One minute, I have to make a call.”

            The UPS girl nods uneasily as he pulls his cell out of his pocket and dials the second number on his speed-dial.

            “Shiro,” he growls into the receiver when his brother picks up, “Why is Mom’s stupid alien junk on my lawn?”

            Silence on the other end of the line and finally, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

            “Shiro.”

            “Just sign for it.”       

            “Don’t hang up on me – Shiro – TAKASHI. Ugh.” He stares at his now blank screen. “I miss flip phones, he remarks conversationally. “It was much more satisfying to snap them closed when your brother is being a _total asshole_.” He sighs, refocuses, and turns his full attention back to the unfortunate girl still stuck on his stoop; “I’ll sign for the damn boxes now.”

            She just nods mutely and hands over the clipboard.

…

            Keith is sitting on the curb, surrounded by his mother’s life’s work when his brother pulls up. He’s changed into jeans but kept the Oedipus t-shirt on because it feels somehow comforting to have it, a dumb gag shirt he bought himself off the internet just because he thought it was funny. Something that was inescapably his, purchased by him, for him, because he wanted it. It’s something to hang onto now, when his past is actively invading his present.

            Shiro’s driving up from the city but he makes it in record time. Shiro’s always been dependable like that.

            His car pulls up to the curb and there he is, same old Shiro. Keith remembers growing up, being a little kid, counting down the days for when summer would start and Shiro would arrive. His big brother who knew _everything,_ who could make the best sandwiches in the world and always remembered to cut the crusts off but not throw them away because Keith liked to eat them separate. His brother who could fix anything. His brother who could make his mom stay in one place for _months_ at a time. Shiro was like a miracle to little Keith Kogane, someone from another planet who could show up and make everything better but was somehow _still related to him_. Like some part of Shiro was also part of Keith and maybe, if little Keith wished hard enough he would someday be like Shiro, the guy who could fix everything.

            Shiro looks different now than he did then. He’s older and his black hair is interrupted by a bright white exclamation point. A scar hides under the hair, and Keith remembers when Shiro came home from combat, when his head was shaved close enough for the nurses to get at the wound and the doctors were saying things like “traumatic brain injury” and “unknown downstream consequences”. There’s another scar, running across his face, from cheekbone to cheekbone and Keith remembers that one too, how his brother’s face was wrapped up like a mummy – shaved head, bandages everywhere, and he looked so terrifyingly unfamiliar Keith just wanted to run and run and maybe if he’d run fast enough he’d get to the past where things made sense and his brother wasn’t in a hospital bed looking like that.

            It’s funny – Keith didn’t have nightmares about his mom dying. He never saw her after the accident. He just remembers her leaving that night, how she’d waved cheerfully, throwing an arm around his neck in a playful headlock and ruffling his hair before kissing the top of his head once, twice, three times, rapid-fire, and then scampering out the door. His last memory was of her whole and then she was just…gone. It was like she’d been abducted by the aliens she’d wanted so badly to find. Just vanished off the face of the earth.

            But he’d had nightmares about Shiro in the hospital.

            He was fourteen when Shiro got blown up, banged up, taken off active duty, medically discharged. He was fifteen when his mom died. He almost expected a third bad thing to happen when he was sixteen; bad things come in threes, right? But it didn’t. He didn’t really have any more family members for karma to take a swing at, he guessed.

            “Hey, little brother,” Shiro says, and his smile’s apologetic but faintly amused, “I didn’t really expect them to be so quick.”

            Keith narrows his eyes at him, “You _knew_ about this?”

            Shiro rubs the back of his neck, “Sort of? They called me out of the blue yesterday morning and said they were downsizing the Institute and they just couldn’t hang onto most of mom’s things any longer and could they please send them our way?”

            “What did you say?”            

            “I said I’d consider it but since I live in an apartment in the city storage might be an issue. I didn’t really expect them to overnight the stuff to your place.”

            “They’re crazy alien-hunters, Shiro. Expect the unexpected.”

            Shiro shrugs. “It’s kind of funny?”

            “ _Shiro_.”

            “What? You look like a little kid trying to build a box castle.”

            “That’s the best you could come up with?”

            “Sorry, I’m having a hard time communicating how absurd you look surrounded by cardboard as far as the eye can seen.”

            Keith drops his head into his hands and groans into his palms, “I don’t want to deal with this, Shiro!”

            Shiro sighs and drops down next to him on the curb. “Well, you can’t keep all this crap out here.”

            “Why, will someone steal it?” Keith asks snidely, well aware that he’s regressing to his teenage self at his moodiest, but having a hard time caring.

            “No,” Shiro says evenly, “But your neighbors might take issue with the fact that your box-kingdom has spilled over into their yard.”

            “They build sentient robots in my basement, they will live.”

            Shiro blinks, “I thought you were kidding about that.”   

            “I never kid about Rover.”

            “Clearly I should visit more often.”

            “Yeah,” Keith elbows him, “Asshole.”

            “Really, that’s the best you could come up with?”

            “Shut up, I’m distraught.”  

            “I’m just saying, you were more creative when you were five.”

            “Do you want me to call you booger-brain, because I will do it.”

            Shiro chuckles deep in his chest and leans back on his hands, tipping his head up towards the sky. “So what are you going to do about all this stuff, kiddo?”

            “Burn it.”

            “I’m pretty sure that violates some sort of homeowners association something.”

            “Wow, you’re really up on suburban life. I should just call you ‘soccer mom Shiro’.”

            “Keith.” Shiro gives him the flat, long-suffering look of someone who has to deal with a lot of shit every day, literal and figurative, and has no time for Keith’s verbal shenanigans. Keith takes this as incentive to keep teasing.

            “Do you check to make sure people cut their lawns on the diagonal? Because I saw a few crazy cats going vertical. Or worse, circular.”  

            “Keith.” Shiro has that gleam in his eye that says that pain will come if Keith continues to poke this sleeping bear. Keith, who, he is starting to realize, relies far too heavily on Lance these days as his personal impulse control, continues to tease, but does so while slowly backing away from Shiro, who has the look of an older brother about to snap.

            “Are you organizing the neighborhood picnic? Because I can’t bring a side this year. I’m just so swamped,” Keith is full on retreating now, but still facing Shiro because sarcasm never rests.

            “ _Keith_.” Shiro is on his feet now and following Keith’s slow retreat.

            “I really think you should have a chat with Mrs. Phillips about her hedges,” Keith says, ducking Shiro’s first swipe and almost tripping over a box of his mom’s research, “They are _definitely_ at _least_ two centimeters above the maximum hedge height.” Shiro grabs for him again and Keith starts running, dodging boxes as he goes, “And you know what happens when hedge regulations get lax!” he yells over his shoulder as his brother chases him through the obstacle course that has become his front yard, “lowered property values, a bad reputation, total anarchy, and it all starts with,” he can’t get out of the way of a box and Shiro is gaining on him – he jumps over it, “ONE MISHANDLED HEDGE!” He escapes around the side of the house and makes it to the backyard, where a combination of a well-placed drainpipe and an advantageous windowsill allow him to scamper up the side of the house and onto the roof in time to avoid Shiro when he comes tearing around the corner.

            His brother pauses, confused, and Keith holds his breath. Shiro scans the backyard but apparently doesn’t find anything. He pauses, apparently not trusting Keith – admittedly, twenty-five years of anecdotal evidence has taught him well on that score – but, not spotting him, he walks back around to the front of the house, shaking his head.

            Was it really that easy? Did he beat Shiro? Keith pauses, confused. This kind of stuff was never this easy. He couldn’t have possibly _won_?

            No. This is some kind of trick.

            Moving silent as a cat – well, silent as a cat wearing boots on a shingled roof, so not that silently – Keith creeps around the side of the house, scanning for Shiro as he goes. He doesn’t see him anywhere, which is definitely suspicious –

            “HOLY SHIT!” he shrieks as a frigid blast of water hits him in the side and almost sends him tumbling off the roof in surprise. He glowers down at the grass below, where his brother stands, grinning his stupid face off, holding the garden hose.

            “That’s it, you’re dead,” Keith snarls, and jumps at him. They go down in a tangle of limbs, wrestling like puppies, or, well, overgrown children, until Keith lands a kick to his brother’s stomach that leaves Shiro winded enough for Keith to beat a hasty retreat to the hose, which he turns on his brother with the vicious pleasure of one avenged. Shiro yelps in surprise and charges at him. Keith sensibly flees his brother’s wrath. Shiro is built like a truck and easily has six inches of height and twenty pounds of muscle on him.

            Keith races around the other side of the house, emerging into Hunk, Pidge and Lance’s side of the shared yard only to crash into Hunk himself, who is staring, understandably bewildered, at the pile of packages creeping in from Keith’s half of the lawn. Keith has just enough time to realize that Pidge is poking curiously – _too_ curiously – at one of the boxes before he’s bouncing off of Hunk and right into Shiro who immediately puts him in a headlock. Keith kicks at his shins halfheartedly but knows he’s trapped.

            “Hello, you must be one of Keith’s neighbors,” Shiro says pleasantly, holding out the hand not currently occupied keeping Keith captive, “My brother has told me so much about you guys.”

            Hunk blinks at them – they must make quite a spectacle, two grown men, both soaking wet, behaving like children. “Uh, hi,” he says, shaking Shiro’s hand “What – uh – what is going on?”

            “Dude!” Pidge yells, “There is so much cool stuff in here! I wonder what it does?”

            “Hey, leave the weird crap alone,” Keith yells, struggling against Shiro’s grip and finally biting his arm when his brother won’t let go. Shiro still doesn’t let go; because of course he’s grabbed Keith with his off hand.

            “You know I can’t feel that,” Shiro says blandly, looking down at him, “And don’t bite people, you’re not a kindergartener.”

            “Let go, jerk.” Keith says, glaring at, well, the only thing that’s really visible right now, which is the ground and a swath of Shiro’s scarred, nerve-damaged arm.

            “Hmmm, no,” Shiro says like they’re kids again and Keith is the eight-year-old brat driving sixteen-year-old Shiro nuts.

            Keith grumbles inarticulately and considers biting him again. Shiro may not feel it but at least Keith will feel like he’s trying.

            “So you’re Keith’s brother,” Hunk says, trying to inject some normalcy into this conversation, “You’re…new.”

            Pidge appears at Hunk’s side and whistles. “And hot,” she says bluntly, “You’re like Captain America but way cooler looking.”

            “Thanks,” Shiro says pleasantly because Shiro is possibly the devil, “So I’m assuming you’re Pidge? Or Katie? Do you prefer Katie?”

            She shrugs, “Anything is cool with me. I also answer to ‘The Great One’ and ‘Supreme Overlord’ if anyone is asking.”

            “No one is,” Keith grumbles and Shiro flicks him the face.

            “So maybe you can help us out,” Shiro continues as if he were not still holding Keith hostage like a giant _jerk-face_ , “Keith and I’s mom willed a bunch of her research and gadgets and things to this Institute when she died but unfortunately the Institute had to downsize recently and they didn’t have the storage space for all her stuff. So we ended up with all of it.”

            “ _I_ ended up with all of it,” Keith interjects.

            “Keith ended up with all of it,” Shiro corrects generously, “So we need to go through it and figure out what is worth keeping and what we’re better off trashing.”

            “You could sell some of it on eBay,” Pidge suggests.

            “That’s actually a good idea,” Hunk agrees, “If any of it is collectible or if there’s a niche market, eBay might be a decent option.”

            “Oh, there’s a niche market,” Keith says, “A possibly _intergalactic_ niche market.”

            “Keith, be nice.”

            “I’m allowed to be bitter, I’ve been to Roswell, New Mexico _twenty-seven times,_ Shiro. That is twenty-six times too many!”

            Pidge gets a gleam in her eye that can’t be healthy and even mellow Hunk looks intrigued.

            Pidge starts rubbing her hands together and Keith knows this is never going to go away, “Can I open the boxes? Please, please?” she says, practically bouncing, and Shiro, being a pushover, says ‘sure’ and hands her his pocketknife.

…

            “Um. Guys. Did you start looking for UFOs while I was gone? Because it’s one thing to miss my glorious presence but it’s another to look for an alien to replace me,” Lance is trying really hard not to shoot concerned looks at his two best friends and some new guy who looks kind of familiar in that ‘maybe you’re famous or distantly related to someone I know or idk, did we go to high school together?’ sort of way, as they unpack what looks to be _years_ of alien-hunting equipment on his front lawn.

            “I might, dude, this stuff is _awesome_ ,” Pidge cackles, “I mean, I’m pretty sure only about half of it would work and it’s at least a decade out of date, but we might scrape together a prototype…”

            “No, no prototypes,” New Guy (who kind of looks like he might be related to Rambo or the Winter Soldier) chides in a…was that a mom voice? So weird. _Lance_ is used to being the Mom Friend. This is just creepy. “Everything is staying in original condition.”

            “Where did all this come from? And where is my boyfriend?” Lance realizes he sounds mildly plaintive and whiny but he’s _tired_ and covered in _dirt_ and just wants a shower and Keith, possibly together.

            “He’s in the kitchen,” New Guy says – maybe _he’s_ an alien, he does look inhumanly awesome, like an action figure.

            “Probably trying to figure out why he doesn’t have any food,” Hunk says, “He forgot to get groceries again.”

            Lance sighs, “How? How does he keep doing this? He has like three million sticky-note reminders _literally everywhere_. I’m starting to wonder how he survived the first two months he lived here.”

            New Guy grimaces, “He called me every single night asking how to make ramen noodles exciting. He was really disappointed when he found out it involved other ingredients.”

            “Adding milk and string cheese while the water’s still hot is my favorite,” Hunk contributes.

            “Good one,” New Guy says and oh, oh shit, this is totally Keith’s brother, isn’t it? That’s why he looks so familiar! There’s a photo of him, way younger and minus a few extremely badass, scary scars, taped to Keith’s fridge. It’s of Keith at nine years old, and Shiro, this scary dude currently sitting in Lance’s front yard wearing a tin foil hat Pidge just dropped on his head, at age seventeen, sitting on a red rock in the middle of the desert with cactuses – cacti – cactypoda? ...whatever, all around. They’re sunburnt and grinning and little Keith looks so terrifyingly happy it’s almost heartbreaking.

            “ _You’re_ the brother,” Lance blurts because Lance has a problem filtering literally everything.

            Shiro shrugs, smiling easily, “I’m the brother. You must be Lance. Keith mentions you casually a lot and then gets really awkward and quiet when I point it out.” A red solo cup flies in from out of nowhere and bounces off of Shiro’s head.

            “Shut up, jerk,” Keith grumps from the front porch where he stands holding…a bottle of vodka, the rest of the red solo cups and what looks like a box of Triscuits and a jar of olives. “This was all that was in my fridge,” he explains, walking over to where the rest of them are huddled. He stops in front of Lance and seems to waffle on whether or not he wants to risk the horrifying embarrassment of kissing his boyfriend in front of his brother or if he wants to take the coward’s way out and just coolly ignore Lance’s return like a miffed cat. He ends up splitting the difference in a quintessentially _Keith_ way and holds out the jar of olives, which sits nested in the rest of the red solo cups. “Welcome home.”

            Lance takes the olive/plastic dishware combo, “Aww, and people say chivalry is dead.”

            Keith rolls his eyes, “Stop.”

            “No, babe, I think this is really romantic. Screw flowers, I want a jar of olives shoved in a stack of red solo cups for every major occasion.”

            Keith is glaring at him, but it’s soft and warm and dammit, Lance missed him.

            “Like, this is the perfect gift. It’s practical; it’s reusable. See? I’m pretty sure these cups are recyclable. And olives – that’s practically a meal!”

            Keith huffs, “If I kiss you hello will you stop?”

            Lance shrugs, “Probably not, but it’s worth a try.”         

            Somewhere in the background, Pidge sighs dramatically, “JUST KISS ALREADY!”

            “Hey, don’t rush them,” Hunk says, which is somehow worse.

            Lance decides to put Keith out of his misery - his ears are turning a suspicious shade of tomato - and kisses him on the cheek, “It’s good to be back.”

            Keith rolls his eyes, “You say that now but you haven’t seen what my mom left me in her will.”

            Lance shrugs, “Bring on the alien junk; I have a jar full of olives, red solo cups, and your love; I can do anything.”  

            “That sounds like the chorus of the worst country song on the planet.”         

            “Aww, you’ve figured out my retirement job for me, that’s so sweet, babe.”

            “Just shut up and help us sort my mom’s crazy alien research.”

…

            Later, in the kitchen, after the sun has set and they’re forced to abandon their sorting and order pizza, Shiro stops Lance as he’s heading out to dump the pizza boxes in the recycling out back. It’s only the two of them; Pidge and Hunk have brought some of the gadgets inside and, with the brothers’ blessing, are trying to make them work or at least figure out how they’re _supposed_ to work in the living room. Keith has vanished somewhere as he sometimes does and it’s just Lance and Shiro and the pizza boxes.

            “Hey.”

            “Is this the shovel talk?” Lance asks, “Because I have heard stories and I am very, very, aware that you could straight-up murder me if I hurt your brother.”

            Shiro snorts, “What the has he been telling you guys?”

            “You have apparently had a very exciting life.”

            Shiro chuckles, ruefully, “I guess that’s true,” he rubs the back of his neck, “Listen, I’m not going to do the whole ‘shovel-talk’ thing. I trust my brother. And you seem really good for him. Just…be good to him, okay? And be…there. Just be there for him. I wasn’t very good at that once upon a time.”

            “Uh, dude, I don’t know if you know this, but he pretty much worships you.”

            “Yeah, and that’s…what it is. Our mom was a good person. I loved her a lot. But she wasn’t very…consistent. I lived with my dad during the school year because it meant I could go to the same schools every year, I could stay in the same house every year, in the same town, with the same people. The summers I spent with mom and Keith…it was like being in Wonderland, everything was topsy turvy and an adventure and nothing was ever the same day in and day out and Mom loved us so much but I don’t think she knew how to be there for us all the time. And Keith didn’t have a dad around, we still don’t know who he is. And Mom was this eccentric scientist trying to find aliens in the desert. The kids at school called Keith ‘alien-boy’ for years. At nearly every real school he went to. He’d get so pissed that they couldn’t come up with something original,” Shiro chuckles bitterly, “There’s a lot that never got resolved there, there’s a lot of questions and a lot of hurt. Just. Try to be there. Just…put Keith first. I don’t think anyone’s ever managed to do that for him. Not even me.”

            Lance frowns at him and Shiro sighs. “I’m not explaining this right. When I was eighteen I just took off, traveled the world, did my own thing, figured stuff out, I guess. And then I joined the military, and I didn’t really think about the fact that I was leaving someone behind. I figured it was Mom’s turn to step up, to handle it. And then I got blown up and I was discharged – do you know I can’t see color? Yeah, brain damage. I’m lucky that was it. I just…can’t see color. Everything is black and white to me. Like an old movie. And then Mom died and here Keith and I were, a mess. We were a _mess_ ,” Shiro looks at him, _really_ looks at him and Lance doesn’t know why this guy is telling him all this, or even what it all means, but he can tell it’s important, so he takes Shiro’s piercing stare and confusing words and rolls with it, “And we’re better now, we figured it out, that’s what you do, you figure it out and you keep moving forward. But I worry about him being alone. I worry about him. And I don’t want you to feel responsible for anything; this is our mess. But just…try. Try to be there for my brother.”

            Lance can’t find the words, so he just nods. That seems to be all Shiro needs, because he’s back to grinning easily.

            “Oh,” he calls to Lance’s retreating back, “and don’t hurt him because I can totally, what was it, ‘straight-up murder’ you?”

            That’s enough to startle a laugh out of Lance, which has Shiro grinning back at him, sharp and bright.

…

            Lance finds Keith on the roof, hours later, after everyone else has gone to sleep. “I know it’s summer, babe,” Lance says, plopping down beside his boyfriend and wrapping the fuzzy blue blanket from the back of the couch around the both of them, “But it gets kind of cold out here at night. What’cha looking at?”

            “The stars,” Keith says and his voice is quiet; he shifts closer, possibly unconsciously, curling up so they fit just right together, “They look different here than they do in the desert.”

            “I bet,” Lance drops a kiss on the top of Keith’s head, “What’re you thinking about?” he murmurs into his hair.

            Keith hums, “My mom.”

            “Yeah? Shiro told me some stuff. You know he’s got a massive guilt complex about leaving you behind?”

            “I know. That’s just Shiro.”

            “Hmm,” Lance wraps the blanket even tighter around the two of them.

            “My mom…” Keith begins awkwardly, “You know Jane Foster, in the Thor movies? Played by Natalie Portman…”

            “I know who Jane Foster is.”

            “Yeah. My mom was basically like that. But a hot alien god never showed up to prove her right.”

            “Maybe he did,” Lance said into his hair, “Maybe you’re half alien.”

            “Shut up,” Keith elbows him in the side; Lance can feel his laughter through his ribs.

            “Sorry, that was mean, Shiro told me about –”

            “Not the Alien Boy shit.”

            “Yeah, I feel really bad now. I called you an alien literally when we first met.”

            “No, you hit me in the face with a mailbox when we first met.”

            “And then I brought up childhood trauma. Why did you go out with me?!”

            Keith is laughing, honest-to-god-head-thrown-back-eyes-scrunched-up _laughing_ and it’s beautiful to see. “It wasn’t _traumatic,_ you dummie.”

            “Hey, mean.”

            “It wasn’t! And you are being dumb. I love you, but there are limits. Seriously, the alien-ghost-serial-killer thing was actually hilarious and yeah, you made me crash into a _mailbox_ , but you freaked out and took me to the hospital and kept me entertained in the Emergency Room waiting area for an _hour_ while they processed my paperwork. You were really…and I’m only saying this once…cute. And sweet. And really, really weird, lets’ not forget that. You made me happy. Even though I was gushing blood and really disoriented and kind of ready to hate you. That’s why I asked you out.”

            Lance stares at him. “I am so fucking in love with you,” is basically all he can manage to say, the rest of his brain has effectively shorted out.

            Keith laughs again and kisses him, “I love you too. Even when you’re weirdly insensitive,” he pauses, thinks, “and when you’re hyper-sensitive and worry I’m going to get upset about _really minor things_.”

            “How was I supposed to know it was minor?! Childhood teasing _leaves lasting emotional scars,_ _Keith_.”

            “Oh my god.”

            “I seriously – just – what? I’m so confused. How do you even exist.”

            “Just stop talking.”

            “But I’m worried about your emotional well-being!”

            “My emotional well-being will be better served by you stopping talking and getting us off the roof so we can sleep and get an early start on the _decades of alien research crap_ currently sitting on my front lawn.”

            “My front lawn,” Lance says mulishly.

            “ _Our_ front lawn,” Keith concedes.

            “Hey, I like that.”

            “You are so cheesy, how are you real?”

            “Love you.”

            “I know.”

            “You have got to stop doing that!”

            And they stay on the roof a little while longer, laughing at the stars.   


           

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from Katy Perry's ET because I couldn't help myself.


End file.
